Identifying gender by some word endings

Knowing the gender of French nouns is one of the hardest things for English students. Fortunately, we have some tips for you! Note that they don't work 100% of the time (That would be too easy!), but it is as close you can get to a rule.

1- Nouns ending with an -e are mostly feminine

This is not an absolute rule, but we can consider that easily 75% of words ending in -e are feminine. Masculine words less often end in -e.

ATTENTION: -é, -ê, or -è are NOT considered as -e, but as a different letter, therefore don't necessarily follow that rule!

Now let's look at endings that don't match that first rule: you can easily remember them!

2- However -age, -ègeand -isme endings tend to be MASCULINE

-age

Here note that the words following that rule all have -age as an ending to an existing word.

-ège

-isme

le RomantismeRomanticism

le capitalismeCapitalism

le CubismeCubism

3- Nouns that don't end in -e are usually masculine

Again, this is not an absolute rule, but we can consider that easily 80% of words ending in consonants aremasculine. Moreover, endings in -é are also mostly masculine. Feminine words less often end in consonants or -é.

Now let's look at endings that don't match that first rule: you can easily remember them!